


Make Do

by lunalius



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, I wrote this out of spite while travelling pls spare me, M/M, Please don't look towards Ten as an example of model parenting, Single Parent Ten, Single Parents, T for swears and a reference to a dick measuring contest, Ten is Renjun's dad, This is about Ten being a parent, This is not a fic about ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 00:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17929127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunalius/pseuds/lunalius
Summary: Ten never wanted to be a father, but he makes do.





	Make Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keyandtonyoutsold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyandtonyoutsold/gifts).



> I wrote this on Notes on like my iPhone and I'm pretty sure I was road tripping when I wrote this but I can't actually remember. Posting this here so I can finally delete the note off my phone I'm running out of space

“He’s sleeping,” Ten groaned, voice low, from where he sat right between Renjun’s crib and his side table, because that was where he was standing when he finally collapsed. “I haven’t been off my feet since four in the morning.”  
  
“What? What have you been doing?” Ten winced as Johnny’s voice came through a little too loud over the speaker, quickly swiping it down.  
  
“He started crying and I woke up to change him and then I was starving, so I thought I’d make myself some breakfast —“  
  
“At 4am?”  
  
“Didn’t I say I was starving? So by the time that was done, he was up again because of gas and he spewed something white on my shirt so I had to go wash it because I’m not going to be that parent—“  
  
“You’re too optimistic.”  
  
“Shut up, I can totally do it.” Ten had much more to say but he heard a voice mumbling at the back.  
  
“Kun says you should use a burping cloth.” Ten started rolling his eyes at ‘Kun’. “I think we should have some spare, we shouldn’t need to use all of what Mark and Lucas used on Donghyuck.”  
  
“Tell Kun I don’t want anything those demon spawns used. Satan quivers before them.”  
  
“Ten!” Kun’s dumb whiny voice came through, and Ten was rolling his eyes again.  
  
“Ten, you’re literally a father.”  
  
“Ugh, don’t remind me. Also hang on, Donghyuck? What?”  
  
“Uh, yeah.” Johnny’s breathless laugh barely came through over the speaker. “That’s what we’re naming our new one.”  
  
“You’re giving him a Korean name? Damn, I thought you were gonna give him another white name like Peter or something.”  
  
“I’ve been trying to reclaim my heritage. Anyway, maybe you should get some sleep now? You’ve been on your feet for seven hours straight, pretty sure that’s illegal.”  
  
“God, my ankles are dead, Johnny. I could die. I want so desperately to die.”  
  
“You should’ve thought of that before you got yourself a dependant.”  
  
“Did I ask my ex to get pregnant and disappear off the face of the planet? I think not.”  
  
Johnny sighed. “Just go to sleep, Ten.”  
  
“I will, I’m,” Ten grasped at the wooden skeleton of his bed, and then at the mattress. “Let me get off the floor.”  
  
Johnny’s barking laughter was interrupted by the dreaded, the vile, the worst and most inevitable sound in the whole wide world.  
  
Ten was on his feet the second Renjun started crying, picking him up and rushing for the kitchen where his still dirty bib was lying and quickly shoved it onto his shoulder under Renjun’s chin.  
  
“Shh,” Ten whispered, gently patting his back as he bounced him up and down in his arms. “Did papa leave too much room between milk time and nyom time? Did papa give you too much milk? God, please don’t fucking burp on me or I’ll throw you out the fucking window.”  
  
“Language,” Johnny’s voice came through the speaker, and Ten suddenly realised he had taken his phone with him. Old habits must die hard, he guessed.  
  
“As if Renjun is going to understand me.”  
  
Kun’s mumbles were heard again. “Kun says children have amazing memory retention, even in infancy. They just can’t choose what memories to hold onto.”  
  
“Sounds like bullshit,” Ten scoffed, “But even if he does remember it, good! Renjun should know that words have power and he can be as powerful as he wants!”  
  
There was a hiss which Ten assumed was Johnny’s particular sigh he did when he was especially tired. “Your funeral.”  
  
——————————  
  
Ten could tell from the moment Renjun slammed the door of his Peugeot that today wasn’t going to be a good one. He eyed his son slump into his seat, staring angrily into the distance.  
  
“Whose car do we need to glad wrap today?” Ten asked cheerily, and that almost earned a smile from the boy.  
  
“None of your fucking business,” Renjun replied.  
  
“So I can pick any one of these cars then? My plans for the evening aren’t going to be cancelled just because you won’t tell me whose house we have to go to.”  
  
“I said it was none of your business, okay?” Renjun shot him a sharp look. “Leave me alone.”  
  
“Sorry,” Ten said lowly, turning in his seat to face Renjun, “But if my son is going to treat my car like it wasn’t $50,000 and forget seat belts exist and be a general asshole to me then I’m bound to pry.”  
  
“Fuck you.”  
  
“Fuck you right back, kid.”  
  
Renjun let out a sound like a strangled animal and aggressively did up his seat belt, returning back to his angry slump in a matter of seconds. “Happy now?”  
  
“Not exactly.” Ten put the car into drive anyway, but then drove in the opposite direction of their house. He didn’t need to look to know he could have seen the gears turning in his head as he figured out what Ten was doing.  
  
“Fine,” Renjun sighed. “Jeno ditched me for lunch today to hang out with Jaemin even though he promised we’d sneak a tarantula into Mr Moon’s desk today. I had to do it myself.”  
  
“I’m not even going to ask.”  
  
“Mr Moon wouldn’t get mad at us, he loves spiders. But that’s not the point!”  
  
“Oh right, of course! This is about your crush on Jeno.”  
  
“My— what? No, I have a crush on— what the hell do you know?”  
  
“Chenle’s been telling Johnny and Kun everything.”  
  
Renjun breathes sharply through his nose. “That little snitch. I’m gonna kill him.”  
  
“I’ll help you bury the body, but finish your story first. Your crush ditched you for your other crush?”  
  
“I only have a crush on Jaemin but yeah, Jeno did, and I think they’re getting closer but I barely even get to talk to Jaemin and that’s just not fair. Why’s Jeno hanging out with Jaemin when he knows I’m into him?”  
  
“Maybe Jeno likes him too.”  
  
“Then he should stop! That’s so not best friend behaviour.”  
  
“Maybe Jeno has a crush on you and he’s trying to make you jealous.”  
  
“He— what? There’s no way he likes me like that. I’m just me, we just like, hang out and shit. Jeno isn’t into me like that. Does he? I’m not Jeno’s type.”  
  
“Then what is Jeno’s type?”  
  
“Uh.” Ten almost thought he broke Renjun with the question, since it was a full minute since he spoke again. “Someone small and beany?” Ten spent the next minute of Renjun’s silence in hacking, coughing laughter, before Renjun protested, “I am not beany!”  
  
“Sure you aren’t,” Ten replied once he’d caught his breath.  
  
“I’m not!”  
  
“Keep telling yourself that. Anyway, what happened then? I thought you were hanging out with Jeno after school?”  
  
“I was but he brought Jaemin along without asking me and they just spent the entire time making google eyes at each other. And still being nice to me, which was shit!”  
  
“Totally shit.”  
  
“So I told him to just tell me straight up if he was into Jaemin and he had the audacity to tell me that Jaemin told him he likes me. So I told him he was a shit friend and ran back to school.”  
  
Ten had to hold back from rolling his eyes the way he wanted to at the high school romance. He was so long past that time and hoped he’d never have to deal with that era again, but it seemed he was reliving it through his son now.  
  
“So this is heartbreak anger.”  
  
Renjun harumphed. “Jeno is a shit friend. I’m right. What kind of friend steals his crush from him?”  
  
Ten hummed. “Johnny actually stole two of my crushes from me.”  
  
Renjun blinked. “He what? Did he really?”  
  
“Yep. Taeyong and Kun.”  
  
“You had a crush on Uncle Taeyong and Uncle Kun?!”  
  
“Mhm.”  
  
“Johnny dated Uncle Taeyong too?”  
  
“Oh, for ages. They broke up like a month before he started dating Kun.”  
  
“Why the hell didn’t either of them like you?”  
  
The actual reason was that they both became less interested when Ten divulged that he didn’t want kids, but that was a secret he had yet to let Renjun in on. “Johnny’s dick is an inch bigger than mine.”  
  
Renjun’s answering wail had him choking with laughter again. “Oh my god! You can’t tell me that shit! Gross!”  
  
“It’s the truth! We sat down together and measured it once.”  
  
“Oh my god!”  
  
“Mine clocked in at about—“  
  
“No! No, no, no, no!”  
  
“And now that your defences are down,” Ten quickly butted in, while his son was still distracted, “That story was pointless and didn’t apply to you.”  
  
“You— what?”  
  
“Johnny stealing my boyfriends. Doesn’t apply to your situation right now.”  
  
“Then why the hell did you—“  
  
“My vlogging camera has been recording this whole time so I have your expression to that on tape. Gonna show Johnny later. But,” Ten took a moment to actually look his son in the eye this time as they went over a speed bump. “You do realise it’s possible that all three of you have a crush on each other, right?”  
  
“I....what.”  
  
“Polyamory exists, Injunnie. It’s very likely that Jeno and Jaemin are into each other and also into you.”  
  
“I...” Renjun cleared his throat, “I never thought of that.”  
  
“Just because none of my friends’ relationships have more than two people doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Actually!” Ten whistled, “Your singing teacher! Doesn’t he run the lessons with his husbands?”  
  
“You mean Minseok? He’s not married.”  
  
“Uh, yes he is? He literally wears two wedding rings and so do the other two? Kid, I don’t know what to tell you.”  
  
“They look like business associates!”  
  
“I’ve seen Jongdae leaving him a kiss right in front of you while sitting in on your class, and the flowers on his table are labelled ‘from: Baekhyun’.”  
  
“Never noticed.”  
  
“You’re hopeless. No wonder you’re hurting now, you basically brought this upon yourself.”  
  
“You’re literally never any help ever. I don’t know why I bother even talking to you. Why the hell are we parking at the supermarket?”  
  
Ten pulled the handbrake up and held the stop button down till the engine turned off. He sling an arm over his steering wheel as he turned to face Renjun. “Glad wrap. We’re doing Jeno’s dad’s car.”  
  
Renjun’s eyes sparkled. “Which dad?”  
  
“Which one do you think?”  
  
“Doyoung will kill you.”  
  
“Jaehyun won’t let him. But if he does, I’ll let you move in with Sicheng.”  
  
Renjun’s eyes flitted to 15 different places in quick succession before settling back on Ten’s with new vigour. “Let’s do it.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/singledadjohnny)   
>  [Curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/singledadjohnny)


End file.
